No - I Am Not Prince Hamlet, Nor Was Meant To Be

Pray, my lord, says the priest. ‘Tis sweet balm for the soul, and he, he sees yours- Lord, I hope not- you think. ‘O! there are spirits of the air!’ a poet will write centuries after they give you your soldier’s burial so when you turn to gaze into the face of the Holy Father you know it to be true know that father is not holy but damned to burn, burn, burn. Love: King-Father and Queen-Mother on twin thrones and then, a girl, voice like the honey-dawn of May Morning, her hands spilling with the roses that now tip into your lap- (later you ask ‘shall I lie in your lap?’, this not honey but biting betrayal, and she will learn each flower's name to replace this echoing in her head) -yes, love, until you find yourself next to him under the guise of dissecting Plato and Diogenes, and see not a cave or a man alone but for a barrel only him, his furrowed brow of thought, a window to a world whose gates are barred. There are more things in heaven and earth/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. This might be one of them. What are you? -heir caught between two kings. Mother a harlot queen twice-crowned- you a prince whose lady made her wedding bed in the slumbering roll of a river. You speared a rat on the end of your rapier, got him good, thought it might part the faces of father and uncle and god that blur in your head. Remember me. Revenge me. They don’t sound so different, not when Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch’d, yet you can’t help but wonder which will be left to you after the blood will out. What are you? - but battling for your soul. Remember me means the dead are for the past- which, as it happens, is no undiscover’d country. This duel, these boys clapping iron pokers together has not traitor or murderer or god at the other end, has instead a mirror, a translation of you, brittle fury and justice brimming over into something self-destructive. You think, when did this become a play, all of us doubled? You think, I’ll be your foil, Laertes- and spring forward to match him. The unholy father has no mercy upon our souls. Adulterate beast and most seeming virtuous queen he reaps for his harvest, remember me a lie, a curse- And- he is the only one not of us an actor, he alone has the strength to recall his philosophy, to bear you in his arms and vow that he is just a little way behind, moments from felicity. In this dimming world only his face is lit. Absent thee, to tell my story. That this is I, Hamlet the Dane- And the rest is silence.